"In the language of business school profs, CMS looks like a mature market with immature products. From the market side, more than 80 percent of the potential buyers—in this case colleges and universities—have made a commitment to a single product standard. But the products are young, the product category less than a decade old. Consequently, it is not surprising, given the relative youth of the product category and the corporate providers, that campus conversations, chat rooms, and articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education document concerns about upgrades software bugs, and, of course, the rising cost of the CMS license.
"Enter The Sakai Project. On 22 January 2004, four universities—Indiana, Michigan, MIT, and Stanford—announced the Sakai Project (www.sakaiproject.org). Sakai’s goal: to develop and distribute a 'complete course management system that incorporates the best features of the participants’ existing systems and experiences.' The project received seed funding by way of a $2.4 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. Additionally, the four founding institutions 'will contribute services worth at least an additional $4 million over the next two years...'"
